Come Back to Me
by Tsubasa Hane
Summary: When Rachel can't sleep, she heads to the kitchen in search of coffee and ends up at Gar's door, leading to the teens talking for the first time since their fight in the surveillance room. (Post 2x05.)


**For those awaiting the next Balance chapter: I have the rough draft typed out and am working on a few pacing/timeline issues that need to be ironed out before editing and posting.

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The idea for this drabble came to me a few weeks ago. Shortly after episode 2 premiered. The original premise was going to focus mainly around Raven's emerging powers and was titled Coming Undone. But then...I got a little distracted by a certain amazingly written Raven/Damian fic and only recently emerged. At that point, episode 5 had happened, and so did the inspiration for a little bit of tweaking.

(Yeah, I said Damian/Raven. Don't judge me.)

(...okay, judge me a little.)

(I certainly judge me.)

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**COME BACK TO ME**

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_Lord knows that I have tried  
To live my life as one  
Friends tell me to hold on  
Tough times don't last for long_

-Come Back to Me, Janet Jackson

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Rachel couldn't sleep.

Literally.

Her eyes closed. Her head rested against the pillow. It smelled faintly of lavender Epsom salt. Soothing. The lights were dimmed. The weight of her blanket fell upon her petite form. Comforting in its minute pressure. Muffled sounds in the distance barely reached her ears. City traffic. People talking. Clashing of weapon against weapon in the training room. Bodies moving around in the kitchen. All little more than white noise ambiance.

Yet her heart pounded in her chest each time she felt herself starting to doze. Her mind raced as thoughts and memories intertwined, haunting her with the reality of her situation. Words she regretted uttering. Actions she wished more than anything she could take back. Hypnogogic jerks caused her muscles to twitch every so often, reminding her of what she wanted to both accomplish and avoid at the same time.

After the third time, she resigned herself to her fate and opened her eyes.

She couldn't sleep. She was too afraid to.

Her legs felt like lead as she swung them over the side of her bed. A glance in the mirror betrayed her exhaustion. For lack of a better phrase, she looked like Hell.

_How appropriate_.

"...coffee..." she murmured to herself, not bothering to stifle a yawn as she trudged her way to the door.

The hallway was vacant, the closest thing to good luck she'd had in weeks. From the moment she stepped outside the sanctuary of her private quarters, a rush of cool air hit her cheeks. The air conditioning must've been turned up. She probably should have shivered from cold. It barely fazed her. She turned left. Towards the kitchen. There was every risk she would run into someone along the way, but it was one she figured she deserved to face.

What she hadn't anticipated, however, was Gar's door being open. Light spilled into the dark path ahead of her. Some grainy, black-and-white flick was playing on his computer monitor. _Abbot and Costello_. It was one of their movies. She remembered the names from the poster in his old room, even though she'd only glanced at it for a moment. Gar liked that sort of thing, didn't he? Classics. The kind of movies that were made before their parents had been born.

Any other night..._before_...she would have walked right on by. Or right into his room. They'd had a sort of unspoken agreement between them for a while now. Neither room was off-limits to the other so long as the door was open. Jason had once mocked them for it, because of course he had, to which Gar had so casually responded that he'd be happy to risk life and limb by barging into Jason's room unannounced if it meant that much to him...

Back then, Rachel had laughed. Now, the irony of his "joke" was anything but lost to her.

Her mind told her to keep walking. There was no way she'd be welcome anymore.

Her feet took her right up to the room's entrance, where she quietly leaned against the door frame. Gar wasn't sitting at his desk, and she had a momentary full view of the screen. He'd mentioned to her that he collected their monster flicks, but this didn't look much like a monster flick to her. There were a man and woman on screen, the former dressed as a sailor for whatever reason with the woman in a lovely white dress beside him. They were singing and dancing. Happy. She wasn't particularly interested in the who or the why or pretty much anything regarding the actual film, and yet it wasn't long before she found herself strangely captivated by the cheesy, cliched scene.

"If you wanna watch, you might as well come in."

She jumped at the sound of Gar's voice, only then noticing the top of his head on the opposite side of the bed. He was sitting on the floor. Her eyes flickered back to the monitor, and she realized he must have seen her reflection in the darkened parts of the screen. She could see him too, now. Staring back with an expression so blank it left her uneasy.

She should have left. Instead, she stepped inside.

The tension in the air was palpable as she quietly circled the room before coming to sit beside him. Just like before, only not like she usually did. He wasn't looking at her the way he used to. In fact, he wasn't looking at her at all; his eyes—which even at a glance, looked vacant and a bit glossy—remained fixated on a movie he was barely watching. There was no warm, inviting presence. Nothing to indicate he was happy to see her at all.

"I hadn't gotten to see this one yet," he spoke again. His voice sounded dull. Going through the motions of idle conversation. "Abbot and Costello in Hollywood. There were a ton of big-name guest stars, and they do the insomnia routine."

For a fleeting moment, she was just confused enough not to feel awkward in asking: "Insomnia routine?"

"Yeah. It's a classic." He shifted. She thought she saw his eyes begin to light up again. Just like they had when he'd first brought her back to the manor basement. "Not as good as Who's on First, but still pretty funny. It starts when Costello can't sleep, so Abbot gives him this record that can put anyone to sleep. And it does, except it skips at the end, and wakes him right back up again. So they try all these ridiculous methods of getting the record player to stop skipping and end up failing every time."

The corners of her lips twitched upward in nostalgia as she murmured: "...you really are a geek, aren't you?"

"Check, check, and check."

The response was as reminiscent as her question, and for the first time, she felt some of the tension began to lift. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. They shared a smile. Weak and tinged with a lingering sadness, but...

"I'm guessing it's about as fitting for you right now as it is for me?"

It was his way of hinting that he knew she was having a hard time with sleep. Idly, she wondered if her exhaustion was that visibly obvious, or if he just knew her that well.

Either way, her lips pressed together as she nodded. "Though...I'm not really sure if a sleep record would make things better or worse."

Her way of hinting that she was really, really tired. Among other things.

They fell into an uncomfortable silence. Rachel hated it. Both the fact that neither of them knew what to say to the other, and that things were still so awkward between them. It was even worse than those first moments in the arcade. At least that kind of awkward—the kind where you meet someone you don't know but who seems cool enough that you'd like to—had been sort of nice. They'd bonded over some stupid pinball game. Over liking each other's hairstyle. Such trivial matters, compared to all the things they would come to have in common.

He'd tried to explain to her once what it felt like having the Tiger inside him. How they weren't exactly the same being, though it was sometimes difficult to tell where the wild beast ended and Garfield began. Like there was this alternate entity buried deep that persistently tried to claw its way to the surface, and how sometimes, it actually felt good to let it. Freeing. To open his mouth and let out a roar that echoed so fiercely he could feel it reverberate in his own chest.

She thought she'd understood then. She really understood now. Only for her, the thought of relinquishing control was anything but freeing. His Tiger recognized the difference between friend and foe. The entity inside her didn't know the meaning of either.

"I'm sorry."

The words had burst from her so abruptly, she nearly missed him saying the exact same thing at the exact moment. The two teens were left to stare after one another for several seconds in a sort of stunned awe.

"...you don't have anything to apologize for, Rachel." It was Gar who broke the spell first, shoulders slumping. "You were right. I was stupid to follow Jason. I was stupid not to call you. And I was completely useless on top of it all."

"You're not useless," she countered.

"Yeah. I am." His head lowered, and an ironic smile appeared. He let out a sound that was partially a laugh, and partially a scoff. "Or at least a complete screwup. I never should have agreed to split up. And...I shouldn't have said those things to you in the control room. I went too far."

He was right. To a degree. She'd been just as scared for him as she was mad at being kept in the dark. Jason was a certifiable asshole, sure, so she wouldn't have expected him to think of her, but Gar was the closest thing to a best friend she'd ever had in her life. They were...she _thought_ they were like a team. Not just the Titans. The two of them. After all they'd been through, it had hurt to think he had left her behind.

Except...his "explanation" had hit frighteningly close to home. Whether or not it had been the actual reason, or if he was so caught up in being mad at her that he said the one thing he knew would hit right back...as much denial as she'd tried to drown herself in...he'd been right about that too.

"You didn't." Her eyes lowered to her hands in her lap. One hand rubbed at the tips of her other hand's fingers. Trying to will some warmth back into them. Or at least to steady the effects of her pounding heartbeat. "Everything you said about me was true."

"No, it's-"

"It is." She cut him off sharply, finally bringing herself to look up. Her eyes stung as they met with his. The sounds of the movie faded into the background. It was just the two of them again, and though they were the last words she wanted to utter, he deserved to know what was happening. "I told you before that I felt different. That I'd changed. Not just-" with one finger, she brushed against the crystal embedded into her forehead. "-because of this. It's something else. Something that's...I don't know, maybe it's always been there. Maybe it's finally just waking up. Maybe _I'm _finally waking up. Who...what I really am."

She was shaking now. Her voice was unsteady. Rambling. Even as she paused for breath, she could feel her body tremble. Fear. Uncertainty. Exhaustion.

"I...can't control it. This _thing_ inside me. I wanted to think I could, but I can't. And it's getting worse and worse every day. I hurt you. I nearly killed Rose. I didn't want to. But it didn't matter. And I'm _terrified_ that I'm going to let my guard down again for even a single moment and-"

"Hey. Hey, come on." Gar's hand was on her shoulder. She blinked back tears she hadn't realized were forming. Her eyes closed, and she swallowed a lump in her throat as she tried to focus on the feeling of his hand moving up and down with each deep breath she took. On the sound of his voice. "It's going to be okay. We'll figure this out."

"You don't know that."

He cocked a half-grin. "Yeah. I do."

_Come back to me, Rachel_.

His voice seemed to cut through the myriad of dark thoughts clouding her mind. A memory, or the remnants of one. His confidence and optimism were stupid in the face of what was happening to her. He had absolutely no reason to think there even was an answer to her problem, let alone that they would find it. And yet...she wanted so badly to believe.

She felt his hand leave her shoulder, but before she could miss the comforting weight it offered, his fingers trailed down her arm until his hand reached hers. Their fingers intertwined, and she felt...

Nothing.

No. That wasn't true. There might have been none of the usual teen melodramatic skipped heartbeats or breath catching in her throat...she might not have felt any sparks at his mere touch...but what she did feel was...warmth. Her skin was as cold as it was pale. Gar's was like the gentle heat of a cozy fireplace.

Her breathing slowed. Steadied. A few more shuddering gasps as she inhaled once deeply before letting it out in a slow, steady exhale. Her shoulders started to relax. The bubble of anxiety knotting her stomach unraveled. A little. Enough to get her to open her eyes again.

She stared up at him beneath heavy lids. Taking in his reassuring expression she was sure he had put on just for her. It was almost enough to get her to smile.

Instead, she yawned.

He chuckled. "You look tired."

"A little."

It was too obvious for her to justify feeling offended. Again, Gar shifted in his seat, once more resting his back against the side of his bed. Only he was so much closer to her now. She hadn't even noticed him move closer. Close enough that...she just needed to lean a little to her left...

Her body twitched again, and she shot up with a start. Eyes wide with fear. "No! I can't! What if...?"

"I already told you it'll be okay." True to his word, he seemed strangely unconcerned considering the bandage around his wrist was still fresh. His head lolled to one side, peering down at her with a smile so reminiscent of the ones he usually sent her. No longer looked at her with hesitation or anger, but the way he did before. Kind of like... "I'm right here. I know what it looks like now. If something starts to happen, I'll wake you back up again. Scout's honor."

Their hands remained firmly clasped between them. He squeezed her fingers gently.

She yawned again. "Bullshit." But her head was suddenly too heavy to keep lifted any longer, and came to rest against his shoulder. "Like you...were a scout..."

The last thing she heard as she drifted off into a peaceful sleep was the sound of Gar chuckling at her. She could feel the reverberations in her own chest. Low and deep as a tiger's roar.

_Come back to me, Rachel_.

She had.

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"Not his girlfriend, my ass," Rose snorted as she wandered by the room and caught sight of the pair.

"Shh," Kori gently shushed her. One hand was on Rose's back, although the young woman hardly needed any physical assistance in walking. It served more as a reminder than anything. "Never mind them. A deal's a deal. You got your midnight snack, and now it's back to the infirmary with you."

"I already told you, I'm fine."

"And I told you, it's either lounge around in bed for a little while longer, or I bring you straight to the training room where Dawn, Hank, and Dick will all be waiting. And there's a strict no eating rule Dick likes to enforce."

Rose only needed half a second to make her decision, though her response was dry and as dissatisfied as before:

"Infirmary it is."

Satisfied, Kori risked one last glance backwards and smiled softly to herself. She'd been worried about Rachel ever since that phone call. Their subsequent conversation had done little to put her mind at ease. But seeing her with Gar like that...well...

That night, she would worry a little less.


End file.
